Lincoln Centennial Address 

Delivered by Jesse Holdom 

Before the West End Woman's Club, Chicago 

February 12, 1909 



Compliments of 
JESSE HOLDOM 



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LINCOLN CENTENNIAL ADDRESS 

Delivered by Jesse Holdom 

Before the West End Woman's Club, Chicago 

February 12, 1909 

^ggggSJODAY President Roosevelt, with impressive 
Ml\/SS5 ceremonies, in the presence of many distin- 
guished Americans, is laying the corner stone 
of the Lincoln Memorial Building, an archi- 
tecturally beautiful edifice on a commanding site at 
Hodgenville, Kentucky, which will inclose and forever 
preserve the lonely log cabin where the great Lincoln 
first saw the light of day. 

What shall I say to you today about Lincoln? What 
can I say that has not already been better said? Lin- 
colnian literature is bewildering for its immensity. All, 
however, that has ever been written about Lincoln is 
interesting to every lover of his country. And who has 
not read and re-read of the wonderful attainments and 
work of this great historical character? Had I been 
commanded to tell you something new about Lincoln, 
something not very generally known, I should have de- 
clined the task. So, while what I may say to you is 
but the old, old story of Lincoln, still, as you love and 
admire him and glory in what he achieved for the perma- 
nent good of our race and country, you will gladly listen, 
with cheerful hearts, to whatever I may say, no matter 
how well such incidents as I shall recite may linger in 
your memory. 

Lincoln is admired, by the great majority for his 
qualities of heart, his humor, his kindness and his 



humanity. He detested war and carnage; to him they 
were hideous ; but while he suffered heart aches through- 
out the war, yet he endured it and persevered with it to 
a successful conclusion for the Union which it preserved 
and the lasting peace which he, great soul that he was, 
knew would follow in its wake. 

Lincoln was blessed with the priceless boon of a good 
mother. She gave him as a birthright a sound, rugged 
physical constitution and a well poised mind, equal 
to cope with the great problems and to solve the many 
difficulties which came to him in his remarkable national 
career. She died all too soon, leaving her boy to sincerely 
mourn her untimely taking away. Lincoln's estimate 
and love of his mother, who fostered in him his fondness 
of reading and thirst for knowledge, may be judged from 
his saying: "I owe all that I am or hope to be to my 
sainted mother." Another good woman came into his 
life when his easy-going father took unto himself a new 
wife in the person of the Widow Johnston, whom Tom 
Lincoln had known as Sally Bush when they were girl 
and boy together. She brought refinement to the Lin- 
coln home, improved much the family style of living, and, 
above all, gave her mother love to the motherless boy. 
The new mother took an especial liking to this interest- 
ing lad, and he returned her affection in full measure. 
She encouraged him to study and aided him with his 
books. She was a noble woman and a model stepmother, 
and deserves to have her memory kept in honor by the 
American people. 

Lincoln had several affairs of the heart. Ann Rut- 
ledge was his first love, and their troth was plighted. 
But grim death snatched the fair young woman away, 
and Lincoln in his grief and despair exclaimed: "I 



never can be reconciled to have the snow, rain and 
storms beat upon her grave." Mary Owens was his next 
flame, but Lincoln was bashful and diffident, and he lost 
her. But he soon after met his fate by marrying Mary 
Todd, a Kentucky belle. This Mary had two strings to 
her bow. She was educated, refined and ambitious, and 
had said in her girlhood days she would marry a man 
who would be President. She married the right man to 
gratify that ambition when she took Lincoln for her 
husband, notwithstanding, it is said that one evening 
at a Springfield ball Lincoln approached her, saying, "Miss 
Todd, I should like to dance with you the worst way." 
After making a painful progress around the ball room, 
with her rather awkward and far from graceful partner, 
she sat down, and a girl friend who had heard Lincoln's 
invitation and watched the pair as they danced, said, 
"Well, Mary, did he dance with you the worst way," to 
which she replied, "Yes, the very worst." 

Lincoln was as homely in his habits, as careless of 
his personal appearance, as any man who ever lived and 
attained distinction of the first order. He put on no 
style and assumed no airs. It is said that "he was his 
own wood chopper, hostler, stable boy and cow boy, 
clear down to, and even beyond the time he was Presi- 
dent elect of the United States." In affirmance of his 
utter oblivion to conventionality, an author informs us 
that "in Winter an old gray shawl was wrapped about 
his neck. His hat had no nap, his boots were unblacked, 
his clothes unbrushed; he carried a dilapidated carpet 
bag for legal papers, a folded green umbrella with the 
knob gone, a string tied about the middle, and the name 
'A. Lincoln' cut out of white muslin in large letters 
and sewed on the inside. He always wore short trousers 



and usually a short circular blue coat, which he got in 
Washington in 1849, and kept for ten years, and which, 
like his vest, hung very loosely on his frame. He slept 
in a warm yellow flannel shirt, which came half way 
between his knees and his ankles. The changes which 
gradually took place in his dress, which reached its 
greatest elegance in his Presidency, were slight and 
marked no decrease in his own innocence about appear- 
ances, the improvements being usually suggested to him 
by his wife and friends. Lying on the floor in his shirt 
sleeves was a favorite attitude for reading. As he had 
no library, and the parlor, with its sofa, six haircloth 
chairs and marble table strewn with gift books in blue 
and gilt, expressed not his spirit, but his wife's, he often 
chose the hall for his recumbent study; and if women 
happened to call, Lincoln would go to the door attired 
as he was, and promise that he 'would trot the women 
folks out.' " 

This unconventional man, however, was an indulgent 
parent, seemingly unwilling to cross his children in any- 
thing, and would romp with them upon the floor and was 
fond of taking walks with them and accompanying them 
to light entertainments, such as minstrel and magic 
lantern shows. Yet the tender-hearted parent, in the 
trial of a cause, was "hurtful in denunciation and merci- 
less in castigation," as many a dishonest litigant found 
to his cost. 

In the trial of a law suit it was admitted generally 
by the bar that Lincoln was "as wise as a serpent," but 
by no means "as harmless as a dove." 

As a story teller he was inimitable, and on circuit he 
was the life of the judges and the lawyers alike, and 
would oftentimes keep them in roars of laughter with 



his stories, until the early hours of the morning. He was 
good to the poor litigant with a just cause, and many 
a wrong he has righted in the forum of the law without 
compensation — purely in the interest of justice and right. 

In dilating once upon what he termed the physico- 
mental peculiarity of his opponent, who was noisy but 
not profound, he said the lawyer reminded him of a 
little steamboat that used to bustle and puff and wheeze 
about in the Sangamon river. It had a five-foot boiler 
and a seven-foot whistle, and every time it whistled the 
boat stopped. 

Judge Davis once fined the clerk of his court for 
disturbing him by laughing out loud while a trial was 
in progress. After court the Judge asked the clerk why 
he laughed so immoderately. He answered that he 
couldn't help it, he laughed at Lincoln's story. The 
Judge asked him to tell him the story, which he did, 
and Judge Davis was so amused himself that he remitted 
the fine. Lincoln once said, "The Lord must love the 
common people ; that's why he made so many of them." 
At another time, "Take all the Bible upon reason that 
you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and 
die a better man," and, "If all that has been said in 
praise of woman were applied to the women of America, 
it would not do them justice for their conduct during this 
war. God bless the women of America." 

Lincoln's sympathetic ear was ever sensible to the 
cry of distress. Those in trouble found in him a helpful 
friend. Many a poor woman, in the depths of despair, 
interceding with Lincoln for husband or son, withdrew 
from his presence with a heart freed from trouble, her 
desires granted. A general once reproached the Presi- 
dent for his exercise of the pardoning power, saying, 

5 



"Why do you interfere? Congress has taken from you 
all the responsibility." Lincoln replied, "Yes, Congress 
has taken the responsibility and left the women to howl 
about me." Once he wrote to the officer in charge of the 

Adjutant General's office: "On this day Mrs. — 

called upon me. She is the wife of Major — . She 

wants her husband made a brigadier general. She is a 
saucy little woman, and I think she will torment me until 
I have to do it," and the sequel sh©ws she succeeded. 

General McClellan paraded his army up and down 
the Potomac, a magnificent body of men, but seemed 
very loath to engage the enemy. Lincoln's patience was 
sorely tried at continued inactivity, and one day he said 
to a General, "Tell McClellan if he is not going to use 
the army, he might lend it to me." On some one remark- 
ing to him that General McClellan was a great engineer, 
he retorted, "Yes, a stationary engineer." 

It has been said that "when the time comes that a 
just biography of Abraham Lincoln can be written and 
read, we shall miss nothing of the human heart, the 
gentle patience, the all embracing sympathy which we 
see today. But with these qualities we shall see an in- 
tellect at once brilliant and profound; a brain that kept 
its own counsel, because it had looked forth with sober 
gaze and seen that its own counsel was best." 






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